mce

56 minutes ago, wookie1965 said:

Nice Tal mine is exactly the same have you got the plastic dew shield.

Yes. Perhaps not its best feature though. In fact, mine arrived with a crack in it, but it serves its purpose.

I only recently realised that the Tal finder shoe is screwed into standard M4 threaded holes, so a Baader universal finder shoe is a straight swap using a couple of hex socket screws. Hence the Sky Surfer V. Not that there is anything wrong with the Tal finder, but the SSV is excellent for finding the sun.

Sunshine in Lancashire!

I used 4 of these:

ENDURO 6862RS Rubber Sealed Deep Groove Ball Bearing 6x13x5mm

And now I forgot the link:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08L4TFLHM

12 minutes ago, mce said:

The bolts on mine are M8, coarse pitch. That is M8-1.25

HTH

I should have said those are the altitude bolts. The azimuth ones are M6-1.0

By the way, I can heartily recommend this item, even though it looks a bit daft.

The bolts on mine are M8, coarse pitch. That is M8-1.25

HTH

I may have just invented it! You could combine a generic phone holder with a generic digiscope adapter, like so:

28 minutes ago, Laurieast said:

@mce I think it might say "Gardener"  ?

https://doitinhebrew.com/Translate/default.aspx?kb=IL+Hebrew+Phonetic

גתנית

I think he is just substituting letters.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_alphabet

Reading from the right, we have what seems to be the letter Gimel, for G. Then we have a dot. And then the letter He, for H. And then another dot. The next one is Vav, for V (nearest he could get to W), and then Yod, for I, and then Tav, for TH.

Q.E.D!

2 hours ago, mce said:

It says "Doxa en Upsistois Theo" (which is googleable).

I just had another look at this, and of course there are some characters underneath the Greek which I hadn't really looked at.

I think they look like Hebrew, which I know nothing about, but with the aid of Wikipedia I would hazard a guess that they say "G H With". Of course, Hebrew reads from right to left.

The learned gentleman seems to have had a sense of humour.

Do please post more puzzles! These certainly beat lockdown crosswords.

On 09/02/2021 at 11:49, Laurieast said:

Enhanced the markings on the back, I can't make out what that says after G H With? and I can't remember what the characters at the bottom say, I do remember it was something religious.

It says "Doxa en Upsistois Theo" (which is googleable).

Pure nostalgia here. This was my first astro book, back in the 1960s, but I lost it somewhere. So for the sake of a little over 2 pounds ...

28 minutes ago, Swoop1 said:

Would you be able to place a couple of eye bolts in the ground and then fit some turnbuckles to the pier/ shed to tighten to the eye bolt?

I thought of this for my pillar, and even bought the bolts. But the paving is natural stone, and I am frightened of splitting it. Also, the bolts could be a trip hazard when the rig is not there. On the whole, I will stick with the sack of compost - it has a minimalist feel to it. 🙂

Just a word of caution. I have this kind of setup which is more less permanently outside. We had some very violent storms earlier this year, and it blew over in the night, fortunately with fairly minor damage. However, I am now rather paranoid, and I check the weather forecast every day for wind speed. If it looks bad, the pillar gets a bag of garden compost draped over its legs, and then it isn't going anywhere (touch wood)!

You are welcome. At least you had an straightforward accident with yours. I fed mine 12v and the Magic Smoke escaped. PM sent.

Here you go. Hope this helps.